python - Date ticks and rotation in matplotlib

Question

I am having an issue trying to get my date ticks rotated in matplotlib. A small sample program is below. If I try to rotate the ticks at the end, the ticks do not get rotated. If I try to rotate the ticks as shown under the comment 'crashes', then matplot lib crashes.

This only happens if the x-values are dates. If I replaces the variable dates with the variable t in the call to avail_plot, the xticks(rotation=70) call works just fine inside avail_plot.

Any ideas?

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import datetime as dt

def avail_plot(ax, x, y, label, lcolor):
    ax.plot(x,y,'b')
    ax.set_ylabel(label, rotation='horizontal', color=lcolor)
    ax.get_yaxis().set_ticks([])

    #crashes
    #plt.xticks(rotation=70)

    ax2 = ax.twinx()
    ax2.plot(x, [1 for a in y], 'b')
    ax2.get_yaxis().set_ticks([])
    ax2.set_ylabel('testing')

f, axs = plt.subplots(2, sharex=True, sharey=True)
t = np.arange(0.01, 5, 1)
s1 = np.exp(t)
start = dt.datetime.now()
dates=[]
for val in t:
    next_val = start + dt.timedelta(0,val)
    dates.append(next_val)
    start = next_val

avail_plot(axs[0], dates, s1, 'testing', 'green')
avail_plot(axs[1], dates, s1, 'testing2', 'red')
plt.subplots_adjust(hspace=0, bottom=0.3)
plt.yticks([0.5,],("",""))
#doesn't crash, but does not rotate the xticks
#plt.xticks(rotation=70)
plt.show()

Answer 1

If you prefer a non-object-oriented approach, move plt.xticks(rotation=70) to right before the two avail_plot calls, eg

plt.xticks(rotation=70)
avail_plot(axs[0], dates, s1, 'testing', 'green')
avail_plot(axs[1], dates, s1, 'testing2', 'red')

This sets the rotation property before setting up the labels. Since you have two axes here, plt.xticks gets confused after you've made the two plots. At the point when plt.xticks doesn't do anything, plt.gca() does not give you the axes you want to modify, and so plt.xticks, which acts on the current axes, is not going to work.

For an object-oriented approach not using plt.xticks, you can use

plt.setp( axs[1].xaxis.get_majorticklabels(), rotation=70 )

after the two avail_plot calls. This sets the rotation on the correct axes specifically.